Lively Minds Country Director Jobs in Uganda
Lively Minds Country Director Jobs in Uganda
About Us Over 250 million children under 5 globally do not get the early childhood care and education (“ECCE”) they need, leading to poor health, poor education, lost life opportunities and poverty.
Lively Minds is an award-winning NGO tackling this crisis in rural Ghana & Uganda. We believe that one of the main barriers to ECCE is that parents in remote resource-poor villages lack the information, education and aspiration to provide basic and affordable opportunities for their children. We have developed an innovative behavior-change programme that empowers marginalized, poorly educated Mothers to run educational Play Schemes for pre-schoolers and to provide better home-based care, using cheap local resources. Not only does this result in positive outcomes for child development, but also has positive impacts for the Mothers too.
These are exciting times for Lively Minds. In Uganda we have recently entered a 3-year period to test and position for scale through a training of trainers’ model through local government, with the long-term aim national roll-out. Over this period we will implement the project, through local government, across all eligible villages in Mayuge District (approach 320 communities), conduct a mixed-methods independent evaluation and build the case for Government adoption and replication. Our funders include USAID and Echidna Giving.
Globally, our programme in Ghana has recently been subject to a randomised control trial, which showed that it has positive impacts on a wide range of child outcomes and on Mothers. Our long-term goal is for the programme to be adopted in several countries in the developing world so that it can have a large impact in tackling the global early childhood development crisis.
The Country Director will lead our Ugandan operations and coach our team through this expansion and transformation process. The Country Manager will have 3 direct reports (the Programmes Coordinator, Set-up Coordinator and a Senior Finance and Administration Officer who in turn currently manage field officers and support staff.
Key responsibilities for the Country Director include strategic and operational planning & implementation, staff management, financial accountability and developing and maintaining strong relations with funders, policy-makers and stakeholders at local and national level. The Country Director will be part of the multi-disciplinary Lively Minds global senior management team- which currently is made up of the CEO, COO, Ghana Country Director, Head of Monitoring & Evaluation, Content Director, HR, L&D Manager and Ghana Deputy Director.
Main Duties and Responsibilities
Strategic development
Contribute to the global and Ugandan scale strategy for Lively Minds.
Develop and implement plans to support the achievement of strategic goals
Identify and drive forward strategic funding and partnership opportunities.
Implementation accountability
Create the annual programme roll-out plan, disseminate and train & support the implementing team to execute the programme expansion as stipulated in strategic plans.
Establish and enforce execution rhythms amongst the team to ensure that implementation is effective.
Lead and support department managers to create detailed plans and risk analyses for themselves and their teams to ensure successful delivery of the programme to achieve desired outputs and outcomes.
Oversee implementation to ensure the expected outcomes are met and the programme meets quality standards.
Train Managers to proactively mitigate against programme risks and respond to unfolding situations in a timely manner.
Ensure that the team and stakeholders adopt a results-focused approach, coaching the team to actively manage risks, engage & empower stakeholders, respond to challenges, identify and implement SMART actions to ensure successful outcomes.
Work with other senior management team members to identify ways to improve the programme, curriculum, approaches, systems and practices
Government engagement
Co-develop and implement an advocacy and stakeholder engagement strategy to gain buy-in from local government officials and establish the case for support with policy-makers, funders and officials at local, regional and national level.
Co-create strategies for securing government partnership for scale ensuring risks are managed and opportunities leveraged;
Develop strategies
and activities to build the capacity of local government and then integrate the programme into local government systems and budgets to ensure that the programme is fully sustained and funded by local government long-term.
Act as the project management office to ensure that partnership deliverables are met, governance structures are used, opportunities are leveraged, and capacity gaps and solutions identified
Develop and implement strategies to ensure government stakeholders are fully engaged in tracking progress, solving challenges, identifying opportunities to sustain and integrate programme
Advocate for ECCE and the LM programme through lobbying and participation in national government department events and working groups.
Leadership, team and organisational development
Establish working norms ensuring Lively Minds’ values and behaviours are embedded in staff behaviour.
Manage change and ensure teams understand and are appropriately implementing policies and systems
Actively manage the performance and build the capacity of all staff through training, coaching, holding 1to1s, setting performance goals, appraisals
Where necessary interview, recruit and train staff and/or contractors
Oversee the financial, administrative and organisational management of the offices, ensuring strong accountability and value for money is achieved
Stakeholders and partnerships
Work alongside independent evaluation team to ensure smooth running of evaluation; capture lessons; identify and disseminate policy recommendations; improve programme and delivery
Identify new and strengthen existing advocacy partnerships to support ECCE systems change within Ghana
Contribute to fundraising proposals and reports (financial and project/narrative)
You may be assigned any other responsibility in agreement with your line manager, in contribution to Lively Minds work and in recognition of your experience and skills. It is therefore expected for staff to be flexible and willing to contribute to the work of the wider team.
Experience and Skills
Essential Experience and Skills
Minimum of 5 years of project management experience – with demonstrated results managing complex projects, people, budgets and activities
Experience working with national and local government and demonstrable results of influencing others
Experience coaching and training others
Ability to manage a complex and varied workload and to deliver under pressure
Willingness to work long hours where required and put in the extra mile
Experience of budgeting and accounting for projects
Excellent communication skills, both oral and written and good typing skills
Adept in or able to adapt to and learn new technologies quickly (e.g. Microsoft 365, smartphone apps, Asana, KOBO/data collection, dashboarding, mobile money)
Experience of working in rural communities
Experience working with international donors and grants
Experience or clear understanding of evaluation and working with data
Ability to work with a multicultural, international remote team
Desirable Experience and Skills
Experience working on ECD, education programme or women’s empowerment in rural settings
Experience of working within government of Uganda
Experience of behavior change/change management
Experience of scaling
All staff will be expected to work to the Lively Minds Competencies.
How to Apply
Please send a completed application form detailing how you meet the person specification to
jobs@livelyminds.org by 3 January 2021.
To download the application form, please ; click here
Please note that CVs and cover letters will not be considered. Lively Minds operates a strict Child & Vulnerable Adult Protection Policy and the post-holder will be required to demonstrate their suitability for this role though background checks. Please note that due to resource constraints, we will only respond to shortlisted candidates. Short-listed candidate will be contacted to proceed on next steps in the application process, which includes assessment followed by two rounds of interviews.
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